Quill's Window

idled; out upon the slow-gliding river it beat relentlessly, creating a pale, thin vapour that clung close to the shimmering surface and dazzled the eye with an ever

r to shatter the smooth, green mirror below. Some of its sturdy exposed roots reached down from the bank into the water, where they caught and

d clear and limpid, contrasting sharply

runk of another tree hard by. A discarded bamboo rod lay beside him on the bank

mouth. His hook and line were far out in the placid water, an ordinary cor

n' for today," he remarked, a

got?" inquired t

fair-sized mess. Sunfish don't make much o

hough," mused

upplemented the othe

-past

at exactly eighteen minutes past nine. I always allow about ten minutes' leeway in case one or two of 'em might have been out late the night before or something,-but as a general thin

t the pole in the more or less perfunctory process of "win

e that line?" inquired the

God knows I prefer to let him rest in peace. The qui

t with his p

five cents," said the old man,

ticle since eight o'clock this morning,-and what's a second-hand fish-line worth?-tell me that.

fish if we're expectin' to have 'em for dinner,-or lunch, as you fellers call it. I'll bet your grandfather nev

up since he cashed in his checks. To be sure, he did see a few things I've never seen,-such as clay-pipes, canal boats, horse-hair sofas, top-boots and rag-ca

-and I'll bet she was the most surprised mortal that ever got inside the pearly gates if she found him there ahead of her. Like as not she would have backed out, thinking she'd got into the wrong place by mistake. And if he IS up there, I bet he's making the place an everlastin' hell f

garette and drawing in a deep, full breath of the pungent smoke. The old man waited a few seconds for the smoke to be expelled,

ly swaller it, do

nhale, that's all.

one side of his mouth to the other, and taking a fresh grip on it with h

nearly two hours," observed the youn

it is that it's a man's job, and not a woman's," he added, with all the sco

lazily. "Approximately ten million men smoked cigarettes over in France for four years

m things do you

d, it's getting hotter every minute. For two cents, I'd strip and jump in there for a game of hide a

u're here to get well, and you got to be mighty all-fired careful. The bed of that river is full of cold springs,-a

to be a go

do you know what happened to him last September? He drowned in three foot of water up above the bend, that's what he

mself a little more comf

sy. I shan't go popping into the water the minute your back's turned.

n. Been threatening rain for nearly a week.

f fresh air. Don't talk to me about country air and country sunshine and country quiet. My God, it never was so hot and stifling as this in New York, and as for peace and quiet,-why, those rotten birds in the trees around the house make more noise than the elevated trains at the rush hour, and the rotten roosters begin crowing just about

said the old man drily. "The frogs

e in France, I've slept in barracks with scores of tired soldiers, I've walked through camps where thousands of able-bodied men were snoring their heads off,-but never have I heard anything so terri

you'll kind of enjoy it. I'd be scared to death if I got awake in the night and didn't hear everybody in the house snoring. I

el like a dog for finding fault. By the way, you said something awhile ago about that big black cliff over yonder having a history. I've been looking at that cliff or hill or rock, or whatever it is, and it doesn't look real. It doesn't look as though God had made

th six or eight foot of earth. You're right about that big rock over there being a queer thing. There's been college professors and all sorts of scientific men here, off

out it. Gives you the willies. How did it c

ll it's like a macadam road. I suppose the Indians followed that trail for hundreds of years. There's still traces of their camps over there on that side, and a little ways down the river is a place where they had a regular village. Over here on this side, quite a little ways

e, which I always forget because it's the easiest way to keep from pronouncing it. Then the French came along and sort of Frenchified the name,-which made it worse, far as I'm concerned. I'm not much on French. About three-quarters of the way up the rock, facing the river, is a sort of cave.

g in a settlement twenty-odd miles south of here. As the story goes, this man Quill lived up there in that cave for about four or five years, hunting and trapping all around the country. White people begin to get purty thick in these parts soon after that, Indiana having been made a state. There was a lot of coming and going up and down the river. A feller named Digby started a kind of settlement or trading-post further up, and c

ppened t

ed seeing the light in Quill's Window for quite a spell. There are some people who still say the cave is ha'nted. When I was a young boy, shortly before the Civil War, a couple of horse thieves were chased up to that cave and-ahem!-I reckon your grandfather, if he was alive, could tell you all about what became of 'em and who was in the party that stood 'em up against the back wall of the cave and shot 'em. There's another story that goes back even farther than the horse thieves. The skeleton of a woman was found up there, with the skull spli

assed and shell-shocked, and then having the flu and pneumonia and rh

is-I guess I'd better

t hurt my

bout that," said t

get up to

of trying it, are

a bit husk

r in order to obtain the ful

it because it ain't allowed. The owner of all the land along that side of the river has got 'no trespass' signs up, and NOBODY'S allowed to climb to the top of that rock. She's all-fired particular about it, too. The top o

r w

and mother are buried righ

ere are a couple of married ghosts fighting on top of

matter," broke in

onstrosity gets more and mo

ar energetically for a few

s. Everybody in this section respects her wishes about keeping off of that rock, and I want to ask you to

g man, fixing his gaze on the blue